Director, Internal Audit in London

Job Purpose

The ICE Internal Audit Group is a global function with more than 80 staff across the US, UK and India.

The London team provides independent, reliable and timely assurance over the control environment across nine entities in London, Amsterdam, Singapore and Abu Dhabi, spanning clearing houses, exchanges, a trade repository and a benchmark administrator.

The Director, Internal Audit is a senior leadership role responsible for delivery of the EMEA Internal Audit mandate across the nine-entity remit.

The role is accountable for the risk-based audit plan, audit delivery oversight, quality, methodology uplift, people leadership and operating-model resilience across the function.

The role requires a senior assurance leader who can think like a risk architect, test like a scientist, report like a board advisor and lead like a coach.

Key Interfaces

Head of EMEA Internal Audit, Group Chief Audit Executive, IA leadership team, Global IT Audit, Audit Committee/Risk Committee secretariats, entity COOs and CROs, Operations, Compliance, Legal, Finance, Technology and external assurance/regulatory liaison teams as appropriate.

• Core Accountabilities
• Audit Mandate Delivery
• Own the risk-based EMEA Internal Audit plan process, including development, refresh, prioritization, sequencing and delivery oversight across clearing, trading venues, regulated utilities and cross-entity horizontal audits.
• Ensure audit coverage remains risk-based, timely, evidence-led and aligned to the Internal Audit Charter, professional standards, entity risk profiles and committee expectations.
• Maintain active visibility over portfolio delivery status, emerging risks, resourcing, material findings and remediation themes across the full EMEA mandate.
• Portfolio Oversight and Technical Challenge
• Provide senior oversight and challenge across audit portfolios, including engagement scope, testing strategy, evidence sufficiency, issue grading, root-cause analysis, report narratives and audit plan implications.
• Act as the directly accountable leader for the Clearing franchise, bringing technical depth to complex CCP, risk management and regulatory-sensitive engagements, while ensuring the wider EMEA mandate is delivered through coordinated support from the managers.
• Promote consistency of sign-off standards across portfolio owners through thorough review of audit deliverables.
• Governance Engagement
• Support preparation of committee materials, including concise updates on audit plan status, findings, validation, watchlist themes, emerging risks and material matters requiring governance attention.
• Maintain the discipline of no surprises by escalating High/Critical findings, regulatory-sensitive issues, cross-entity findings and recurring remediation weaknesses promptly and clearly.
• People Leadership and Team Resilience
• Lead the London team framework below Head level, including appraisal calibration, development planning, hiring below Director level and promotion recommendations for Senior Auditor, Lead Auditor and Manager grades.
• Coach Senior Managers, Managers, Lead Auditors and staff on scoping, evidence, sampling, root-cause analysis, report writing, stakeholder management and committee-ready messaging.
• Build succession depth and resilience through cross-portfolio deployment, cross-training, documented handovers and a visible career pathway.
• Operating Model Uplift
• Support delivery of internal activities related to methodology refinement and engagement-level quality sampling, ensuring workpapers, reports and sign-off decisions can withstand management, committee and other stakeholders.
• Drive practical improvements to ways of working, including integrated audit scoping, reusable playbooks, sharper reporting, data-led testing and stronger linkage between business and technology controls.
• Consolidate inputs, risk assessments, entity priorities, regulatory themes, horizontal audit candidates and cross-entity thematic papers into a coherent annual planning recommendation for Head and committee approval.
• Champion the responsible adoption of analytics, automation and AI-enabled techniques in audit planning, testing and reporting, ensuring efficiency gains are matched by appropriate governance, human oversight and evidential quality.

Responsibilities

• Own the risk-based audit plan: Lead the development, refresh and delivery oversight of the EMEA risk-based audit plan, ensuring coverage is calibrated to entity risk, regulatory expectations, committee priorities, cyclical coverage principles and available audit capacity.
• Primary oversight of clearing franchise audit delivery: delivery oversight, with personal involvement in material, technical or regulatory-sensitive CCP engagements, including direct interaction with senior clearing management.
• Deliver the wider mandate through portfolio owners: Oversee delivery across trading venues, regulated utilities and cross-entity horizontal audits through the Managers as delivery leads, while retaining mandate-wide visibility over plan status, emerging risks, material findings and resourcing pressure.
• Report with impact: Produce and challenge concise, evidence-based reports that trace issues to criteria, root cause, consequence and practical action, and ensure that messages are understandable to senior executives.
• Govern quality: Perform quality reviews, and challenge overstatement, unsupported conclusions and unclear audit narratives.
• Lead people: Set expectations for professional standards, judgment, writing quality, stakeholder management and career development; coach managers and staff to operate with confidence in senior forums.
• Knowledge and Experience
• Significant Internal Audit, assurance, risk or control leadership experience in complex, regulated financial services like market infrastructure, clearing, exchange, post-trade or adjacent environments.
• Ability to oversee audit delivery across multiple portfolios, business models and jurisdictions, including through senior managers and managers.
• Strong understanding of governance, operational risk, regulatory expectations, risk and control frameworks and the role of Internal Audit under a Board-approved charter and professional standards framework.
• Demonstrable ability to lead complex audits as an audit mandate controller, including scoping, testing strategy, evidence evaluation, root-cause analysis, issue drafting and senior stakeholder challenge.
• Ability to brief senior leaders, handle difficult Q&A and communicate clearly under pressure.
• People leadership capability - coaching, calibration, development planning, performance conversations and promotion or hiring input for high-performing audit teams.
• Strong written communication - concise, precise, evidence-based, proportionate and suitable for executive, Board and regulator-facing audiences.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant discipline such as Finance, Economics, Business, Accounting, Engineering, Sciences, Law, Risk or Technology.

Desirable Knowledge and Experience

• Master’s degree in relevant field preferred.
• Experience with exchanges, clearing houses, CCP risk management, margining, collateral, default management, treasury/liquidity, market surveillance, regulatory reporting, operational resilience, benchmark administration or trade repository operations.
• Exposure to UK, EU, Singapore or ADGM regulatory regimes relevant to CCPs, trading venues, benchmark administration or trade repositories.
• Experience coordinating integrated business and technology audits, including joint scoping with IT audit teams and evaluation of technology-enabled controls.
• Professional credentials or advanced study such as CIA, CISA, ACA/ACCA/CPA, CFA, FRM, MBA, LLM or equivalent qualification.
• Working Style and Values
• Independence with partnership: Maintain objectivity while engaging management constructively and fairly.
• Mandate-wide mindset: Look across portfolios and entities, not only at one franchise, to identify common themes, duplication, gaps and leverage points.
• Methodology with judgment: Apply professional standards rigorously, then focus effort where risk and materiality are highest.
• Clarity over volume: Prefer sharp analysis, concise drafting and direct messages that help committees make decisions.
• Calm under challenge: Prepare thoroughly, communicate early and land difficult messages with composure.
• Technical curiosity: Understand the business model, the control design and the enabling technology deeply enough to ask sharper questions.
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